Saturday, October 26, 2013

The implosion of the GOP brand, in one chart

The implosion of the GOP brand, in one chart

Republicans successfully converted the 2010 elections into a
referendum on President Obama, the economy, and liberal overreach. As a
result, they won big. Now Democrats are hoping to turn the 2014
elections into a referendum on the GOP brand and the destructive
excesses of Tea Party governance.
The GOP just might help Democrats succeed.
Polling released this week by the Washington Post and ABC News found the GOP’s unfavorability ratings among Americans at an all-time high of 63 percent.
But a closer look at the numbers reveals that this has been
accompanied by a massive collapse in 2013 of the GOP brand among core
constituencies important in midterm elections: Independents, women, and
seniors. The crack Post polling team has produced a new chart
demonstrating that in the last year — since just before the 2012
election – there’s been a truly astonishing spike in the GOP’s
unfavorable ratings among these core groups:

The interactive chart (run the cursor on the bars for numbers) shows
the GOP’s unfavorable ratings have jumped 19 points among seniors, to 65
percent; 17 points among independents, to 67 percent; and 10 points
among women, to 63 percent. Those are all key constituencies in midterm
elections.
Observers believe that over the long term, the GOP will have to do a
better job winning over college educated whites, who are an increasingly
important constituency, along with young voters and minorities, in the
Democratic coalition of the future. (Ron Brownstein has dubbed these
groups the “coalition of the ascendant,” arguing they are increasingly important in statewide races, not just national ones.)
Among white collar whites, the GOP’s unfavorability rating has shot
up by a startling 21 points, to 70 percent. Among college educated women
– who may be more critical to the Dem coalition than college educated
men – the spike in GOP unfavorability has been somewhat more dramatic
than among women overall, jumping 15 points, to 74 percent. If this
trend continues, it could fuel future Dem gains among women.
Democrats believe their chances of winning key contested Senate races
in states won by Mitt Romney — such as Georgia, Louisiana, North
Carolina, and Montana — hinge on their ability to drive up their numbers
among independents and women. This view is shared by nonpartisan
observers, such as Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the
nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
“When you’re a Democrat running in these red states, you have got to
run up the score among your strong constituencies,” Duffy tells me. “For
Democrats right now, it’s women and independents.”
Meanwhile, seniors tend to be a larger percentage of the vote in
midterms than in presidential years, so any Dem inroads into traditional
GOP dominance among them could matter. “Seniors tend to be very
reliable voters in midterm elections,” Duffy says. “They turn out in
great numbers. In the past few elections, they have favored Republicans.
If Republicans start losing seniors in large numbers, they have a very
big problem.”
Is it possible the 2014 elections will really be about the GOP brand,
given that Democrats control the White House? This turns on a nuance of
recent electoral history. In 2010, Dems tried to make the elections
about the dangers of a return to Republican rule, arguing, famously,
that voters should not give the keys back to the guys who drove the car
into the ditch. That didn’t work, because voters didn’t see 2010
Republicans through the prism of the Bush years. Obama had been in
charge for two years and had failed to turn around the economy, which
remained in horrific shape. Voters in 2010 didn’t know what post-Bush
GOP-rule meant.
But now, Democrats believe, voters do know what post-Bush GOP rule
means — they have grasped the governing implications of a GOP that has
been radicalized by the Obama presidency — and these core groups are
recoiling. “The chances that the election could be about the GOP brand
are over 50 percent,” Duffy tells me.
Republicans in key Senate races are all running against the
President, which is understandable, given his unpopularity in red
states. But Dem operatives think record-high GOP unpopularity may dilute
the impact of a message that’s All About Obama. One thing Dems
are watching for is this: The possibility that GOP candidates’
vehement opposition to Obama could itself become associated with the
GOP’s more extreme elements, particularly if GOP numbers among core
groups like the above hold.News orgs and nonpartisan observers
agree that GOP hopes of taking back the Senate are dimming, partly
because Republicans need to run the table in Senate races and partly
because a House Republican could well be the GOP nominee in multiple
races. The House, of course, is a heavier lift: Observers believe Dems
must win these core groups by unrealistically large margins to take back
the lower chamber.
There is still plenty of time for the current political atmosphere to
change, of course. But the possibility of more GOP crises and chaos
governing in 2014 – which could reinforce current public impressions of
the GOP – remains very real. “The Republican brand is already so
damaged,” Duffy says. ”What should be a pretty successful cycle for them
is deteriorating by the week.”